Coolpix 4500, 5700 samples online!By
Mike Tomkins(Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 06:32 EDT)We're not sure how much to read into them though, given that Nikon USA has maintained that the current round of cameras isn't ready to have their results shown to the public...It's a little hard to figure out what might be going on with Nikon corporately these days. There was apparently significant confusion between their various international divisions over the state of readiness of the D100 recently, and now Nikon Japan has just published four sample photos from the just-announced Coolpix 4500 digital camera, and a further four from the Coolpix 5700. This is curious to say the least, given that we were told that current development cameras were not ready for public display, as were our friends at the other main camera sites in the USA and Europe. Besides the samples on their own site, they've also also allowed a third-party Japanese site to post samples from the 5700.

It gets even stranger than that though: While the 4500 samples Nikon has published apparently come from a production camera (firmware version 1.0), the samples from the 5700 that they've posted are actually from a camera with earlier firmware than is in the sample we have here.(We actually have a camera with v1.0 firmware, while the samples posted on the Nikon site show firmware version v583-52n-C.)

For what it's worth, the Japanese Miscall website have posted 17 photos from the Coolpix 5700, with what appears to be the same firmware version as we have. They've listed the images with a "beta" symbol next to their names, but it's not clear at this point whether version 1.0 firmware is in fact the final release candidate, or if the actual production firmware will carry a later code. In any event, it appears that the Miscall samples are from a more recent firmware revision than those on Nikon's own site.

It's hard to know what the actual state of affairs is, but we'll ask Nikon USA for clarification, and report here what they come back with. For now, regard the links above as "for reference only" until we can learn what the true state of affairs is relative to the final firmware.